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booking a cruise | the cruise series part 1

Bonvoyage! Today marks exactly one year from the day I will be taking my next cruise aboard the BRAND NEW Symphony of the Seas by Royal Caribbean. We officially booked our spots this week and I’m soooo excited! The ship is the biggest in the world and so new it hasn’t even sailed yet.

I have been on more cruises than any other type of vacation. 2 Disney cruises and 3 Royal Caribbean cruises later, I have so much useless knowledge about cruises. We are in the planning phases of our cruise for next spring break and I thought I would share some of my experiences with planning a cruise, specifically with Royal Caribbean.

At this point, I have been on the Liberty of the Seas twice (they did renovations in between the two times) and the Allure of the Seas. All of my “expert” knowledge will be related to these ships, planning for the upcoming Symphony of the Seas and what other loyal Royal cruisers have told me.

Every cruise vacation begins with the initial step of booking your cruise. There are many kinds of cruises, ships price ranges and destinations to choose from that it can be a bit overwhelming to plan. I’m going to go through the steps you should take to book the cruise of your dreams.

Decide what’s most important to you

When booking a cruise, there are many factors to choose from: the departure port, the destination, the ship, the sail dates and the number of nights you want to sail. Ideally, you would hit all of your wants, but there are only so many cruise itineraries that you may have to compromise on some of the choices.

Dates

The most important factor to us is the dates. Next spring, we have a limited window of time to sail for my sisters’ spring break. We need an itinerary of 6-8 nights during our dates in March 2019.

Departure Port

The second most important factor to us is the departure port. We want to sail out of Florida because the cost to fly there is the cheapest and we want to visit the Caribbean. They’re called Royal Caribbean, but you can sail from anywhere around the world; from Alaska and Hawaii to Australia, Europe or the South Pacific. A dream of mine is to do a Mediterranean or Southeast Asian cruise to Thailand.

The Ship

The next important factor to us is the ship, more importantly the size of the ship. I have heard from many cruisers that you want to choose a ship from a larger fleet. When you get into the smaller ships, you loose activities, amenities and space. The quality is just not as high. The larger ships are also brand new and have higher innovation. Here is a list of the classes of ships in order of size. A full post of the differences in the ships coming soon.

Oasis Class – Oasis of the Seas, Harmony of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Symphony of the Seas {6,360 passenger}

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Quantum Class – Quantum of the Seas, Anthem of the Seas, Ovation of the Seas, Spectrum of the Seas (coming soon) {4,905 passenger}

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Freedom Class – Liberty of the Seas, Freedom of the Seas, Independence of the Seas {4,375 passenger}

*personally I would stick to ships above this point* Some of the smaller ships go to exclusive ports that the larger ships don’t. If you care more about the destination than the journey, then you’ll want to consider the smaller ships.

Voyager Class – Voyager of the Seas, Explorer of the Seas, Adventure of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas {3,838 passenger}

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Sovereign Class – Sovereign of the Seas, Majesty of the Seas {2,774 passenger}

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Radiance Class – Radiance of the Seas, Brilliance of the Seas, Serenade of the Seas, Jewel of the Seas {2,542 passenger}

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Vision Class – Vision of the Seas, Legend of the Seas, Grandeur of the Seas, Rhapsody of the Seas, Enchantment of the Seas {2,076 passenger}

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Empress Class – Empress of the Seas {2,020 passenger}

When booking a cruise on the website, you can select different filters for a search based on what you want.

For example, I would check the boxes:

6-8 nights

sailing to the Caribbean, Cuba, Bermuda and Bahamas

sailing from all Florida ports

March 2019

You can also check which ships you want. I chose all available from the first box above.

The destination at the top of my list was Cuba, but the only ships sailing there are from smaller fleets.

From these filters, I have 10 itineraries to choose from, but not all of them are during the dates we want. Only three cruises with these filters are sailing during the week that we want to go. One is an itinerary I’ve already done, one is the Best of Cuba on Empress of the Seas and the third is the one we chose a 7 night on Symphony of the Seas.

It also happens to be going to ports I haven’t been to. Checking all the boxes made it easy to find a cruise just for us.

If you want more options, flexibility of dates helps (with cost and options) or you can choose any ship for a larger selection of destination ports.

Another thing is you should NEVER book a cruise full price. Sign up for emails to get notified when sales are happening, which is ALL THE TIME. When one sale ends, another one begins. Sometimes they offer better deals based on what you’re looking for, like “kids sail free,” for example. We don’t have any kids, so this is not a sale we would care about. They always have some kind of deal going on, kind of like Aeropostale. Just don’t buy full price.

Picking a Stateroom and Floor

Now that you’ve chosen a cruise itinerary. You’ll have to book all the specifics of your cruise. First, you will pick the type of stateroom you want and then you will be able to decide where on the ship you want to be. This is important because you don’t want to be too far away from everything. It can become a real chore to run back to the room if you need to.

I have found that we spend the most time in the middle of the ship or towards the top decks. I wouldn’t suggest choosing a deck lower than 5 (on the bigger ships). The main dining rooms are usually on decks 3 through 5 with most of the activities on those decks as well. If you can, this is the area to be. A good rule of thumb is to find the Royal Promenade deck and choose a room near that.

The second area I would suggest is the higher decks, near the pools. Everything else is going to be far away from where you’re going to be hanging out. Elevators are hard to come by and I promise you, you won’t want to take that many stairs. We’re on vacation!

Symphony of the Seas Example

The Royal Promenade is on deck 5, Boardwalk and Aquatheater are deck 6, Central Park is deck 8, between decks 8 and 14 are all stateroom floors and then 15 and up are the pool decks. Anything between 5 and 8 (and closest to the center of the ship) is ideal. The next floor I might look at is deck 14, closest to the pools and the cafe .

Interior Stateroom

You will almost never be in your room, aside from getting ready and sleeping. You don’t need anything fancy. If you don’t care about having a window, just stick to the Interior stateroom. Some ships even have the option of a virtual balcony that has a simulation of the sun and ocean.

Interior View Stateroom

Any of the rooms that are facing the middle of the ship with a window (Central Park View, Promenade View, Boardwalk View etc.) are going to be loud at times. You’ll be able to hear and see any goings on in the middle of the ship. I find some of these choices unnecessary because they’re more expensive and — with Promenade and Boardwalk rooms — you still don’t have sunlight. If you like to rise with the sun, but don’t want to pay for it, Central Park and Boardwalk might be a better option.

Ocean View Stateroom

For one of our cruises, we got an Ocean View room, so we could see outside. I don’t recommend this option because they’re only offered on the bottom floor, away from everything. It was just a huge pain to get anywhere on the ship. When you travel between floors, you’ll either use the slow-moving elevators or have to take a lot of stairs. My advice is to stay on one of the middle to top floors, near everything.

Outside Balcony Stateroom

The final staterooms I would make a splurge on are the Ocean View Balcony or the Central Park Balcony.

I don’t know about you, but I love opening my windows at night and breathing in the fresh summer air. It’s also 10x better when it’s salty, ocean air. Central Park is a beautifully landscaped, outdoor park at the heart of the ship, filled with hundreds of tropical plants and trees. You can enjoy fresh air combined with beautiful nature and people watching. You don’t get a view of the ocean, but you still get the luxury of fresh air at a lower price. They also offer a special for the Central Park rooms of a free meal for two at one of the specialty restaurants and a free bottle of wine.

The Ocean View Balcony is the most expensive, but most worth the money. Enjoy fresh air, views of ports, seas and skies right from your stateroom. From here, you can watch sunrises and sunsets, ports coming into view and rare glimpses of sea life up close.

Although, the balconies would be nice to have, you don’t need a special room to have a great time. If you don’t think you are going to be in the room, or need the daylight to shine in, just stick with the standard Interior room.

Dining

All ships — except the ones in Quantum Class — offer a Traditional Dining plan where you have an assigned dining time, table and server, which stays the same for the entire cruise. I love this because you start to build a relationship with your servers by the end of the trip. I have loved every set of servers I’ve had on my cruises, they truly hire the best and are known for outstanding service throughout the ship.

You can choose between the first seating at 6pm or the second seating at 8:30pm. I have always preferred the second seating because you’re not cutting into any of your day when you have to get ready for dinner. The sun doesn’t set until 7pm or later and I just hate wasting that daylight inside. Also, you’re eating so often throughout the day that it gives you enough time to get hungry after all of that eating. You can even stop into the buffet for a pre-dinner snack if you want.

I have never been so well-fed than when I’ve been on a cruise. It almost spoils you for real life.

Making Final Selections

After dining, you just have to select if you want to pay for gratuities now or later and if you want to purchase vacation protection.

If you’re booking way in advance, you can put a minimum deposit down and pay as you go.

Congratulations! Your cruise is booked and now you can start planning your vacation.

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[…] they will all look the same (they still kind of look the same to me). Like I mentioned in my last post on booking a cruise, you must prioritize before you look for your cruise. Journey or destination. When you’re on […]